by Iris Murdoch
‘This is my friend Mr Opian. Mrs Fitch. Step on it, Gilbert.’
Hartley turned to me as the car sped along the coast road, but she said nothing. She clutched, perhaps unconsciously, the sleeve of my jacket with one hand. I sat relaxed, content to feel the touch of her fingers and of her knee. Her eyes had their violet tint and her face the strained fey expression which when she was young had made her look so desirably wild. Now it made her look almost mad. I found myself smiling with joy at the enclosed safe feeling of the car, at its speed. The sense of a successful escape was overwhelming. I smiled at her crazily.
When the car stopped at the causeway she was reluctant to get out. ‘Does he know I’m coming? Couldn’t he come out here to the car?’
‘Hartley, darling, do what you’re told!’
When I had got her out Gilbert, as instructed, drove the car on. It disappeared round the corner in the direction of the Raven Hotel.
I had told Titus to stay in the kitchen, but when we were half-way across the causeway he opened the front door.
I had been so absorbed in my mind with the mechanical detail of my plan that I had not really reflected upon what this meeting would be like. My intentions had far overleapt it and my hopes were assembling a much less awkward future. Now however I was jerked back into the present and an alarmed confused sense of what I had brought about.
As soon as she saw Titus, Hartley stopped and an almost terrible change came over her face. Her mouth opened and drooped in an ugly way as if she might cry and her eyes half closed and her forehead had the ‘pitted’ appearance which I had seen before; only what all this expressed was not shock or some sad overwhelming joy, but guilt and supplication. At the same time she quite unconsciously spread out her hands wide on either side of her, again not for an embrace but as a petition.
I took all this in quickly and was so instantly hurt by it I wanted to cry out, stop, stop! I wanted to interfere mercifully as between two unequal combatants. But I was already excluded from the scene. Titus came forward, frowning, manly, with screwed-up eyes, determined to be hard and calm and display no emotion. He could not however conceal, for it showed in his every gesture, even in the way he walked, that he was bent on raising a suppliant. He came to Hartley and somehow gruffly gathered her, hustling her towards the door. I saw him push her in through the doorway, his hands in the middle of her back. I hastened to follow.
When I got in they were already conversing, standing in the hall, and I felt: it’s not like mother and son. And yet why not? Family relations are all awkward, funny. Or had Hartley never managed to become his mother, never been allowed to? What would they say?
‘We didn’t know where you were, where you’d gone, we tried and tried to find out, we did try, we did ask—’ This as if Titus were accusing her of having failed to find him.
‘Yes, yes, I’m all right, I’m perfectly all right, I’m fine,’ answering a question not put yet.
‘And you are well and have your work or are you still—where are you living?’
‘I’m unemployed and I’m not living anywhere.’
‘We left our address with the people in case you’d lost it, in case you came back. And I wrote a letter—’
‘It’s all right, Mary, it’s all right—’
To check this conversation which I found somehow awful (I could not bear to hear him reassuring her and calling her ‘Mary’) I said, ‘Why don’t you go through to the kitchen? Would you like a drink?’ I needed one, and in their situation I would have been frantic for one, but neither of them seemed to feel the necessity and in fact they ignored the question.
Titus went through into the kitchen and Hartley followed and they stood beside the table, holding on to it, and looking at each other with stricken glaring faces. Hartley’s look expressed timid supplication and fear, his a kind of shamed disgusted pity. There was so much pain in the room, it was like a physical barrier. I stood watching them, wanting to help, to interrupt. ‘Won’t you have some supper? Let’s have some supper, shall we? Let’s talk—’
Titus said, ‘Of course I never lost your address.’
Hartley said, ‘I mustn’t stay. Would you like to come over to our place? But you mustn’t say you’ve been here. Would you like—?’
Titus shook his head.
She went on, ‘Ben doesn’t know you’ve come, he’s gone out, walked over to a farm to ask about a dog.’
‘About a dog?’ said Titus.
‘Yes, we’re thinking of having a dog.’
‘What kind?’
‘A Welsh collie.’
‘Will he bring the dog back with him?’
‘I don’t know.’
At least this was something like a topic of conversation.
I was tired of being invisible and inaudible, so I shouted, ‘Have a drink, have some supper!’
Titus, without looking at me, waggled his hand in my direction, then said to Hartley, ‘Come in here.’ She followed him into the little red room and he shut the door in my face.
I now decided, none too soon, that I had better leave them alone. Besides, now that Hartley was here, I had to work out in more detail the dangerous and decisive next steps. I stood for a moment thinking in the hall. Then I ran upstairs to the drawing room and pulled out some writing paper. I had found in a drawer some embossed Shruff End paper which must have belonged to Mrs Chorney, and on a glossy sheet of this stuff I wrote:
Dear Mr Fitch,
Just to say that Mary is over here with me, and Titus too.
Yours sincerely,
Charles Arrowby.
I pushed this into an envelope and ran out of the house.
I was somewhat surprised to find a warm summer evening in progress. Perhaps the house was cold, perhaps I had been feeling cold, perhaps I felt that ordinary time ought to have stopped. The grass on the other side of the road was a pullulating emerald green, the rocks that grew here and there among the grass were almost dazzlingly alight with little diamonds. The warm air met me in a wave, thick with land smells of earth and growth and flowers.
I ran across the causeway and then along the road in the tower and Raven direction, and then around the corner to where the bay was visible. Here, obedient to my orders, Gilbert had parked the car. I wanted it out of sight in case I had to tell Hartley some lie about it later.
Gilbert was sitting on a rock, looking at the brilliantly lit blue water. He jumped up and ran to me.
‘Gilbert, could you take this letter now and deliver it at Nibletts, at the bungalow, you know, it’s the last one in the road.’
‘OK, boss. How are things in there?’
‘All right. Go now, there’s a good chap. And then come back again and wait here.’
‘What about my supper? Can’t I come into the house?’ Gilbert, bursting with curiosity, was longing to busybody around.
I would not have it. ‘No, not yet. You’d better buy yourself a sandwich at the Black Lion, and then come back here. I don’t quite know what’s going to happen.’
‘Nothing violent, I hope?’
‘So do I. Hurry, now.’
‘But, guv’nor—’
‘Go.’
‘I can stay for a drink at the pub, can’t I, I’m dying for a drink—’
‘Yes, but not long, four minutes.’
Looking at Gilbert’s disgruntled face I was unpleasantly reminded of Freddie Arkwright. And now there were Arkwrights everywhere, and they had got hold of Ben.
I ran back, and the car passed me at the causeway. I went into the house (which was cold) and on into the kitchen and poured myself out half a tumbler of dry sherry. I did not listen at the door of the red room. I went out onto the grass and climbed a little way up onto one of the rocks whence I could see the sea and began to sip the sherry.
So far so good. But how would Hartley behave when I began to put the screw on? And what would Ben do when he got my note? When would he get it? If he walked both ways to Amorne Farm and back, and allowing half a
n hour for the dog, he should be back at Nibletts about nine thirty. It was now a little after eight. I remembered that I was hungry. The sherry was making me light-headed. However if the bloody Arkwrights ran him home in the car he might be back soon after eight thirty. On the other hand, if he walked back with the dog he might not be there till nearer ten. What did he suddenly want a dog for anyway? Did he want to programme the animal to attack me?
I decided on reflection that it did not too much matter what time Ben got back, as he would probably make no move tonight. He would wait, at first expecting Hartley and Titus to turn up, and then grinding his teeth. I imagined him even finding a dark satisfaction in his own mounting rage. Not a nice man.
I finished the sherry and went inside. The murmur of voices in the little red room continued. I thought then that really the longer they talked the better. Every minute that passed could bind them closer to each other, and also would use up more of the dangerous time. When they got hungry they might come out. But more likely they were too agitated to feel hunger.
In spite of my fears I was not. I sat for a while eating biscuits and olives, then I scraped the remains of the kedgeree onto a plate and took it outside again, together with a glass of white wine, and resumed my sea view. I felt very odd, excited, nervous, a bit drunk, but clear in the head.
Almost at once however I heard Titus shouting. He evidently could not bring himself to shout either ‘Charles!’ or ‘Mr Arrowby! ’ but called out several times, ‘Hello there!’ followed by various urgent owl hoots.
I considered ignoring these cries, but decided I had better not, even though it was far too early to expect Ben. I returned precariously to the lawn with my plate and glass.
Titus and Hartley were standing outside by the door, she wearing that distraught frightened look which I now knew so well.
Titus said, ‘Look, Mary thinks she’d better go. I’ve told her there’s lots of time but she wants to go now, OK?’
Hartley said, ‘Could I have the car at once, please?’ She spoke in a hard almost angry tone.
Titus said, ‘I looked out the front, I couldn’t see it. She’s getting very bothered.’
‘Nothing to bother about,’ I said. I went into the kitchen and they followed me. ‘Won’t you have some supper?’
‘I must go,’ said Hartley. Her moment, whatever it had been, with Titus, was now over, and the cruel husband-dominated time whose slave she was had driven even Titus out of her head. The old panic was back. How I detested that fierce almost relentless look of fear upon her face. It made her ugly. While in the wood, when she kissed my hand, she had looked beautiful.
Titus said, ‘Come on, where’s the car, she’s got to go home.’
Titus had evidently forgotten that his task was to keep Hartley at Shruff End. Or more likely, he had been infected by her fear. I had been too tactful in my explanations to Titus, too vague. I had not told him everything that I had in mind, partly because I did not know how he would react. I had told him that my idea was that Hartley would want to stay, and that he should add his persuasions. But I now saw that I ought to have been more explicit.
‘There’s no need to go,’ I said.
‘I’ve stayed much longer than I meant to already,’ said Hartley. ‘He said he’d be back about half past nine, but he could be sooner. So please I must go now, this very minute.’
‘There’s no need to. I’ve sent Opian round with a note saying you’re here with Titus, so he won’t worry, he’ll come here. Then Gilbert can run you all back.’
Titus whistled. He saw at once the enormity of what I had done.
Hartley was a moment taking it in. ‘You mean—you mean you’ve told him, deliberately told him—oh, you wicked—oh, you fool—you don’t know—you don’t know—’ Tears of rage and despair sprang into her eyes and her face blazed at me. I stepped back.
I said, pursuing the role that I had adopted, but also speaking sincerely, ‘Hartley, you mustn’t be so frightened of him! I’m absolutely fed up with your attitude to that bloody man. Why should you feel you have to lie to him all the time? Why the hell shouldn’t you be here with Titus, it’s perfectly natural and proper!’
Titus looked at Hartley with interested concern and at me quizzically. ‘And did you invite him here? Jesus!’ He added, ‘Of course he won’t have seen the letter yet because he won’t be home.’
Hartley, looking at her watch, had just realized this too. ‘Oh yes, he mustn’t see it, he mustn’t see it! If we go at once there’ll be time to get it before he sees it. Then everything will be all right. He just mustn’t see the letter. Please, we must go at once, the car, the car!’
I said, with a maddening air of calm, ‘I’m terribly sorry, but the car isn’t there. It’s gone on to the garage by the Raven Hotel, there’s a fault in the engine.’
‘When will it be back?’ said Titus.
‘I don’t know, oh soon, I daresay.’
‘We could ring them up.’
‘I haven’t got a telephone.’
Hartley cried, ‘I must go, I must go, I must go, if I run I can get there in time—’
‘I’ll run for you,’ said Titus.
‘No, you won’t,’ I said, glaring at him. ‘Now, Hartley, just sit down here at the table and stop behaving like a mad person. The car will probably be back any moment. But listen, I don’t want you to go back there, back to him, back to his house. I want you to stay here, to stay here with Titus and me.’ I gave Titus another meaningful look. I felt as if I were sifting the sense into her head.
Hartley sat down. She looked from me to Titus and back like a frightened animal. I sat down beside her. She was trembling, and I saw some dawning of understanding in her terrified eyes. There was a sudden atmosphere of crisis.
Titus said, ‘She wants to go back. And I’ll go back with her. I’ve decided to.’
I said, still trying to gain time, ‘No, no, both of you stay here. Hartley, my dear, he’ll know where you are, he won’t think you’ve drowned. He can come and see Titus here. Titus stays here, he lives here. Titus, you don’t really want to go over there, do you?’
Titus, visibly distressed, said again, ‘She wants to go back. She doesn’t want him to see the letter. There’s still time. I could run over there in twenty minutes. It’s just beyond the village, isn’t it?’
‘Oh go, please, please,’ cried Hartley, ‘go now, the door isn’t locked, you can just—’
‘Or should I run to the hotel? Which is nearer?’
I said to Titus, ‘I want him to see the letter. And you are both to stay here. Are we that man’s slaves? I want to let your mother out of that cage.’
Hartley gave a cry of woe.
‘Why do you want him to see the letter?’ said Titus. ‘I don’t understand all this, it’s like some sort of plot. I know you said you hoped she’d want to see me here, and that. But I didn’t think you meant to pull the whole bag of tricks down on her head.’
‘That is exactly what I do want to do,’ I said, ‘to pull the whole bag of tricks down on her head.’
‘No, no!’ Hartley leapt up and made a dash for the door.
I blundered after her, and reaching for her shoulder grabbed the neck of the dress, which tore a little. When she felt it tear she stopped. Then she came back to the table and sat down with her face in her hands.
Titus said, ‘Look, I don’t like this. You can’t keep her here against her will.’
‘I want her to be able to decide freely.’
‘Freely? She can’t,’ said Titus. ‘She’s forgotten about freedom long ago. Besides, if you keep her here she’ll be far too frightened to think. You don’t know what this is like, she might go mad. I’m afraid I misunderstood. You didn’t say so, but I thought you had some sort of understanding with her. I thought she was sort of prepared. But you can’t suddenly make someone leave someone they’ve lived with for years.’
‘Why not? When people do leave people they’ve lived with for years they usually
do it suddenly because that’s the only possible way. I’m helping her to do what she really wants to do but without help can’t. Isn’t that clear?’
‘Not awfully.’
‘She’ll calm down, she’ll be able to think, soon, tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow? Here?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re going to keep her all night?’
‘Yes.’
‘Suppose he comes?’
‘I don’t think he will. To answer your earlier question, I did not invite him.’
‘Oh, Jesus. What’ll he think?’
‘I don’t care a fuck what he thinks,’ I said, ‘in fact, the worse he thinks the better. Let him think anything his foul imagination can beget.’
‘That’s part of—pulling everything down?’
‘Yes.’
‘My God,’ said Titus. Then he said, ‘I think it’s obscene. And I don’t like this talking about her as if she were a child or mental patient. I’m going to swim.’
‘Titus—don’t think too ill of me—you see—’
‘Oh I don’t think ill of you, in a way I’m quite breathless with admiration. I just couldn’t do it myself.’
‘You’re not going to run over there for the letter?’